Reasons I Should Blog, Number 1015

Reasons I should blog? There are all the obvious reasons that spring to mind, the companionship of fellow makers, the communal bouncing around of ideas. There are the reasons that don't come into it for me, raising of the profile, the self promotion for a business. One of the lesser known reasons is that it actually helps my organisational skills. You see, as I have said before, I quite often have no great plan. I don't have a computer programme to plot out my quilts, there would be no point, I wouldn't use it. Sometimes I draw something on a page, very occasionally I do the math. More often, the drawing goes AWOL and the math is wrong. Usually I just wing it.

The advantage of winging it is you don't know what's coming. That can be good. The disadvantage of winging it you don't know what's coming. The advantage of blogging is I write something down to focus on, I can see it more clearly.

 

About 3 years ago I bought two boxes of Cotton and Steel fat quarters from Craftsy. Craftsy was in due course taken over by Bluprint. Bluprint is closing down. I blogged in January 2017 about buying it, read here. I remember it was beautifully packed.

 I thought maybe I should have a look at my fabric. I had actually cut a load of 5" squares, and even made half square triangles with a variety of grey kona cottons. That was as far as I had got. I  blogged about it in February 2017, you can see here. I had vague ideas of these transforming into the quilt of my dreams in a random, intentional half square lovliness. Further than that I had no plan. Then I got waylaid in my Postcard of Sweden quilt, and that was that.

We need two quilts for the sun loungers. I have been saying this every few years for the past few years. I did make two quilts for the loungers, Mr Cool and Mrs Hot.

                                                                       Mr Cool

 

 

                                                                         Mrs Hot

 They received marital approval and live over the back of the living room sofa. As some famous financier said, when you marry the mistress, you create a vacancy. We still need two quilts for the sun loungers. The Postcard from Sweden is perfect, except there is only one, and it is not long enough for my husband's longer legs.

I had this great idea I would make use of  those grey and Cotton and Steel half square triangles. Calm, neutral and relaxed. My husband says, they aren't very bright. I like your bright quilts. Tough. These will be calm, neutral and relaxed. I started laying them out in an envelope formation. That was vetoed, the mix of greys complicated the layout, apparently. Sometimes it is better not to ask for an opinion, just to do ahead and do it.

Ok. I always liked this arrangement. I would try and bring in 3 of the points in the same vague colour group, the 4th would be a contrast. A slight variation on the Millwheel block. This would, I hoped, liven up the colours. I started to think myself, it might be a bit drab the first way. I appreciate this photo doesn't show any matching colours! (It is also not a real fly on the fabric.)

This is where the blogging would have helped. It would have helped formulate my plan, plus I am always open to helpful suggestions.  I was sewing and sewing. I was planning on two long narrow quilts. Gradually it started getting a bit broader, just to bring in enough of the squares for an actual block pattern to evolve. Two blocks wasn't wide enough. Three blocks, or two blocks centred and a half either side didn't really show off the pattern. Four blocks was getting rather wide for a narrow quilt. The photos below are just my playing around with two narrow layouts.

I began to be concerned that for 2 quilts  I would run out of grey. Unbelievably grey kona cotton, any shade, is sold out all over the UK. First hand sanitiser, then toilet paper, then grey kona cotton. Who would have thought that? That's ok. I have lots of blues. Two contrasting quilts, one grey and one blue. The deep blue will help to lift the grey.

Then I made the fatal flaw. I asked for advice. It wasn't what I expected. The grey is calm and relaxed, seemingly, it would make a lovely alternative quilt for our bed. Our current quilt is my Kaffe Fassett quilt, which is a seething cauldron of colours and madness. With the opportunity to make another quilt for the bed, who am I to argue? For our bed it is.

So .... Progress as it stands. I have four blocks sewn together in fours. These will form the centre of the quilt. I will add single blocks around the edges to make the quilt bigger and even on all sides. It is difficult to get a photo at this stage. The sun came out, the breeze blew the blocks around the garden. You know the drill! When I start to get them together, I will get another photo.

I will make the flimsy of this, and set it to the side for quilting at a later date. I have two sun lounger quilts to make ! Bright ones. Maybe my Kaffe Fassett leftovers will be bright enough?

 

Speaking of sun. We had a quilt show one sunny day in the garden. It was very select attendance, just the two of us. The intention was to post it here. When I posted it to my Facebook account, Warner Brothers got a bit over excited over the copy write of the music in the background. Not music expertly overlaid or anything, don't be daft. Just music playing in the house on the stereo. They then gave permission, then blocked it again. So, I don't want to tempt fate by posting it here. You can however see it in its blocked state on the Northern Ireland Patchwork and Quilting Guild facebook page if you so wish. I will try to post some of the stills photos here. It passed an afternoon for us. Another happy day in quarantine!

 

And with that I shall leave you, stay safe. stay well.

Helen x